Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors Release Notes

Applies To: Operations Manager 2007 R2

These release notes are for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors. Read these release notes thoroughly before you install or upgrade any Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors.

New Features for Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors

This release of Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors includes the following new features and changes.

• Component installation for all supported connectors is rolled into a single Windows Installation file. The Interop Provider for Windows-based remote systems is also rolled into a single Windows Installation file.

• This release supports the new Universal Connector, which can be deployed to connect Operations Manager 2007 R2 to almost any third-party application that is hosted on a Windows-based operating system or on a supported UNIX-based system.

  The Universal Connector supports the following locales:

  • Japanese (JA)

  • German (DE)

  • French (FR)

  • Russian (RU)

  • Korean (KO)

  • Spanish (ES)

  • Italian (IT)

  • Brazilian Portuguese (PT)

  • Simplified Chinese (CN)

  • Traditional Chinese (TW)

• Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors also support the following specific Enterprise Management Systems (EMS).

  • BMC Remedy Action Request System (ARS) including the following locales:

    • Japanese (JA)

    • German (DE)

    • French (FR)

    • Russian (RU)

    • Korean (KO)

    • Spanish (ES)

    • Italian (IT)

    • Simplified Chinese (CN)

    Warning

    Remedy 6.3 is not Unicode compliant. Therefore, these locales are only supported on BMC Remedy ARS 7.1.

  • HP Operations Manager (formerly HP OpenView Operations) for UNIX, including the following locales:

    • Japanese (JA)

    • Korean (KO)

    • Spanish (ES)

    • Simplified Chinese (CN)

  • HP Operations Manager (formerly HP OpenView Operations) for Windows, including the following locales:

    • Japanese (JA)

    • Korean (KO)

    • Simplified Chinese (CN)

  • IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console (TEC), including the following locales:

    • Japanese (JA)

    • German (DE)

    • French (FR)

    • Korean (KO)

    • Spanish (ES)

    • Italian (IT)

    • Brazilian Portuguese (PT)

    • Simplified Chinese (CN)

    • Traditional Chinese (TN)

• This release supports high-availability installations for the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors in the individual connector’s environment.

  Important

  When you configure a connector for high availability, make sure that you complete the following steps.

  1. Select High Availability on the Configure connector service Login and High Availability installation wizard page for the secondary connector service install.
     
     
  2. Use the same SCInterop database and database server for all connector high availability installations.
     
     
  3. Install the connector service, and make sure that there is at least one installation of the Configuration UI component within an Operations Manager 2007 R2 management group.
     
     

  For more information about the high availability feature, see the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors Deployment Guide.

• Access to the <EMS> Connector Configuration dialog box has moved to the Administration pane view. For more information about the <EMS> Connector Configuration dialog box, see the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors Deployment Guide.

• Access to the Product Connectors Subscription wizard remains in the Administration pane view, but you must use the connector that is in the Internal Connectors pane to launch the wizard. For more information about the Product Connectors Subscription wizard, see the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors Deployment Guide.

Known Issues for this Release

Discovery of the connector services occurs less frequently

The management packs for the connector services have been changed so that the discovery process for the Connector Service now occurs once every four hours. Any errors related to the Connector Service are not reported in Operations Manager until the discovery of the Connector Service object is complete. Additional connector services that you install high availability will not be monitored until the next scheduled discovery.

Workaround: If you need to run discovery immediately, stop and then restart the Health Service on the computer that is running the Connector Service. For example, you might want to run the discovery process after you install additional connector services for high availability.

All previous versions of Operations Manager Interop Connectors must be uninstalled

The prerequisite check feature of connector installation fails if the check detects any previous versions.

Workaround: Use the Uninstall Program or the Add or Remove Programs feature in Windows to ensure that all previous versions of Operations Manager Interop Connectors are uninstalled. If they are not, uninstall all previous versions and components of Microsoft Interop Connectors from the management group in which you plan to install the connectors. Also uninstall Interop Provider and SCE Core components from the remote systems on which you plan to install the Interop Providers.

Interop Connector installation requires the English version of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package

Any Windows-based server that hosts either Operations Manager 2007 R2 or the Interop Provider must have the English version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package installed to allow correct installation and configuration of the components.

Workaround: For the English version of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package download that is appropriate for your server type, see the information in the Microsoft Download Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117778).

You can install the English version of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package and another language version on the same computer.

Connector service installation must include a database instance when it is installed on clustered servers

If the SQL Server database instance that is to be used for the connector service database is installed on a clustered server running SQL Server, you must specify the database instance. For servers that are not clustered, selecting the SQL Server Database Instance field on the Connector Configuration database page of the connector service installation wizard is optional.

Workaround: When you install the connector service on clustered servers, in the SQL Server Database Instance text box on the Connector Configuration database page, enter the name of the database instance to be used. The SQL Database Name can remain as the default, SCInterop.

Interop Connector database collation requirements

The Interop Connector database has no requirement for a specific SQL database collation. It works with any default collation of the SQL Server/Instance.

SQL Server database permissions might have to be configured to enable Connector Configuration UI access

A user account with permissions to access the Administration pane in Operations Manager 2007 R2 might not have sufficient permissions to read or run stored procedures in the SCInterop database. The lack of permissions will prevent such a user account from accessing the Connectors Configuration UI in the Administration pane.

Workaround: The user account that is used to administer Operations Manager 2007 R2 must also have SQL DBO privileges on the SCInterop database. Typically, you use SQL Server Management Studio to grant permissions to a user account.

Repair function of Connectors Installer is disabled

When a connector is installed and you access the Connectors set-up .msi file by clicking it or by using the Add or Remove Programs feature in Windows, the Change, repair, or remove installation page appears. The repair function for Connector installation is disabled. If you right-click the .msi file, you will see the Repair selection. If you click the Repair selection, you will receive an error message and the function will fail.

Workaround: To make a repair to a specific connector, uninstall that connector, and then reinstall it. For complete information on Connectors installation, see the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors Deployment Guide.

Closed alerts should be cleared when you configure a Products Connector Subscription

When you configure a subscription by using the Product Connectors Subscription Wizard, it is best not to select to forward Closed alerts. Forwarding closed alerts can cause an unexpected amount of alerts to be forwarded. Because the Closed check box on the Criteria page of the Product Connectors Subscription Wizard might be selected by default, make sure that you clear the Closed check box.

Remote system server name is not validated

When you configure Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors at installation, the OpsMgr Connector for <EMS> Connector Configuration dialog box appears. Use the <EMS> server name field to enter the name of the primary server for the remote system. However, this server name is not validated. To prevent forwarding operations from failing, make sure that you enter a valid name for the remote system server.

An “Invalid Login” messages occurs when incorrect locale is specified on UNIX-based systems

When you run the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector to HP Operations Manager on a UNIX-based system, the Interop Provider (scxcimd) and the daemon (scinteropd) must be started in the same locale that HP Operations Manager is running. If the locales are not the same, the provider and scinteropd will fail to connect to HP Operations manager and “Invalid Login” will be logged in the log files.

Workaround: When you run the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 connector for HP Operation Manager on a UNIX-based system, the Interop Provider (scxcimd) and scinteropd daemon must be started in the same locale as HP Operations Manager is running under. If not, the provider and the daemon will fail to connect to the HP Operations Manager connector, and an 'Invalid Login' message will be logged in the scx log files.

For example, if the HP Operations Manager connector was started with a locale set to “ja_JP.SJIS” and the scxcimd daemon (Interop provider) was started with the locale set to “C”, an ’Invalid Login’ message would be logged in the scx log the first time we try to forward a new alert from System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 to the HP Operations Manager connector.

Tivoli Enterprise Console (TEC) alerts might exceed maximum field size

When you include Product Knowledge or Context in a TEC alert, you must reduce the Maximum field size setting on the Operations Manager tab of the TEC Connector Configuration dialog box to a lower number, such as 1,000. If these field size settings exceed 1,000 bytes, one of the following scenarios could occur.

Scenario 1:

1. The alert is forwarded to TEC.

2. TEC receives the alert.

3. Because the alert is too large, it will not pass the TEC rules.

4. The alert eventually reaches a MAX Retries status.

Scenario 2:

1. The alert is forwarded to TEC.

2. Because the alert is too large, it is dropped and therefore, it is not created in TEC.

3. The alert eventually reaches a MAX Retries status.

To determine whether the alert size is the cause of a forwarding failure, do the following:

1. On the TEC server, use the Tivoli command, wtdumprl, to determine whether the alert was received and processed. If the alert is too large, the TEC server might have dropped it.

If the event was created in TEC, but the alert TicketID property was never updated with the TEC event ID, do the following:

• Examine the tec_rule file for an error that is similar to the following: Apr  8 17:41:11.326091 tec_rule[421948] ERR tec_msg.c:130: Packet size too small to contain message

The tec_rule file is in the /tmp directory on UNIX-based systems and in the /$DBDIR/tmp directory on Windows-based computers.

To change the field size for Product Knowledge and Context

1. Open the TEC Connector Configuration dialog box.

2. Select the Operations Manager tab.

3. Set the Maximum field size to 1,000 or less.

Change TEC Port to 5529 for TEC on Windows

If the TEC Connector Service is not configured with the correct port number, the service will not be able to communicate with TEC and it will generate errors.

Workaround: When you forward alerts to a TEC server that is running Windows, you must set the TEC server port on the Connector Configuration UI to the specific port on which TEC is listening. The connector is set up to work with UNIX-based servers or with TEC servers that use the UNIX Port Mapper to determine TEC’s port. A TEC server that is running Windows uses a hard coded port which is set, by default, to 5529. You must set the TEC server port to the specific port on which TEC is listening and then restart the Connector Service.

‘Unknown Error’ stops connector service

On rare occasions the Operations Manager SDK will produce an ‘Unknown Error’ message. When this occurs, the connector service will stop. You can check the connector service logs to see whether there is more information about why the connector service was stopped. To recover, restart the connector service.

Installation sometimes generates configuration warning message

Installation of Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors sometimes fails with a warning that the product is already configured.

Workaround:

For Windows Server 2008-based servers, delete the following files:

• C:\ProgramData\TECConfigInstall.xml\

• C:\ProgramData\REMEDYConfigInstall.xml\

• C:ProgramData\OVOConfigInstall.xml\ or C:ProgramData\UNVConfigInstall.xml\

For Windows Server 2003-based servers, delete the following files:

• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\TECConfigInstal.xml\

• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\REMEDYConfigInstal.xml\

• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\OVOConfigInstal.xml\ orC:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\UNVConfigInstal.xml

Administrator account needed for installing on Windows Server 2008

When you install the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors components on a Windows Server 2008-based computer by using a domain user account, the installation can fail even though the account has the appropriate permissions.

Workaround: Use the following procedure to perform the installation.

To install connectors using an administrator account

1. On the Start menu, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.

2. In the Command window, change to the location of the installation file.

3. Run the msiexec /i command by using the appropriate Connector Setup file, for example:

   msiexec /i SciConnectorSetup_x86.msi

Best Practices

Do not install the Connector Service and the provider on the same server

It is recommended that you install the connector service and the Interop Provider Component on different servers.

Connector Service on a non-managed server

The Connector Service does not have to be installed on a server with the Operations Manager agent. If the Connector Service is installed on a server that does not have the Operations Manager agent installed, errors and events related to connectors will not be raised in the console, and the management pack will not discover the connector.

Authenticate Certificate Verification before setting up High Availability and EMS Communication

You must authenticate certificate verification before you set up High Availability and add systems in the EMS Communication Order dialog of the connector properties.

When you set up the second server, manually run the scicert utility to pull back the certificate on the provider system and create the trusted relationship between the second connector service system and the provider system.

To view scicert usage information, for your specific configurations, open a command window, type scicert, and then press ENTER.

Install Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors on English language operating systems

Operations Manager 2007 R2 connectors should only be installed on English language–based versions of operating systems.

Restart System after connector service installation

If you install the connector service on the same server on which your SQL Server database is installed, and then you restart the server, it is probable that the connector service will attempt to start before SQL Server has started. This leads to the connector service failing to start. If this scenario occurs, you can manually restart the connector service after SQL Server is running.

To prevent the scenario from happening, you can use Service Manager to add a recovery action to the service.

To add a recovery action to the connector service

1. From Control Panel, select Administrative Tools, and then select Services.

2. In the right pane of the Services window, right-click the OpsMgr Connector for <EMS> entry, and then select Properties.

3. In the Properties dialog box, select the Recovery tab.

4. In the First failure list, the Second failure list, and Subsequent failures list, select Restart the Service.

5. In the Restart service after field, enter 1, and then click OK.

6. Close Services close Administrative Tools, and then close Control Panel.

Do not use FQDN as <EMS> Provider name

When you install a connector and specify a Windows-based server for the Interop Provider, the certificate that is generated on the Provider server is based on the name of the server and not on the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server. Do not specify FDQN in the <EMS> Provider field of the Connector Configuration wizard. Instead, use the name of the server that the Interop Provider is installed on.

Use proper account for Connector service setup

The account that you use when you set up the connector service must have “Login as Service” privileges.

Do not install multiple providers on the same server

Installing multiple providers on the same server is not supported in this release of Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors.

Install the non-English Remedy User tool to send non-English data to Remedy ARS

To send non-English data to Remedy, the (local) non-English version of the Remedy User tool must be installed on the provider server. The non-Unicode applications locale setting must also be set to the same non-English locale. For example, if you use Japanese data, you must install the Japanese User tool, and, in Windows, you must set the locale for non-Unicode applications to Japanese.

In addition, when you install the AR Server, you must set the DATA language to the local (non-English) language. The DATA language can be set only when the AR Server is installed. It cannot be changed after installation.

Use the opsmgr account on Remedy

The “opsmgr” account can be used only by the connector service. If you use the “opsmgr” account to update tickets, the updates will not be sent back to Operations Manager 2007 R2.

Set correct ports during installation

Be aware that Connector and Provider installation opens ports 1433 and 1270. Port 1433 is the default SQL Server port. Port 1270 is the WS-Man port.

Using the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console to Integrate with a Windows based TEC Server

If you are using the TEC Connector to forward alerts to a Windows-based TEC Server, you will need to set the TEC Server Port on the Connector Configuration UI to the specific port to which TEC is listening.

The connector is set up to work with UNIX-based and Linux-based Windows-based TEC Servers which use the UNIX Port Mapper to determine the TEC port. TEC on Windows uses a hard coded port. By default, this is set to 5529. You will need to set the TEC Server Port to the specific port on which TEC is listening and then restart the connector service. Otherwise the connector service will be unable to communicate with TEC and will generate errors.

System Prerequisites for the SCE Core

The following tables describe the required UNIX-based and Linux-based operating systems and package dependencies.

IBM AIX 5L 5.3

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
Operating System version	Version of the operating system	AIX 5.3, Technology Level 6, Service Pack 5
xlC.rte	XL C/C++ Runtime	9.0.0.2
openssl.base	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	0.9.8.4

HP-UX 11i v2 IA 64

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
HPUXBaseOS	Base OS	B.11.23
HPUXBaseAux	HP-UX Base OS Auxiliary	B.11.23.0706
HPUXBaseAux.openssl	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	A.00.09.07l.003
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	On HP-UX, PAM is part of the core operating system components. There are no other dependencies.

HP-UX 11i v2 PA-RISC

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
HPUX11i-OE	HP-UX Foundation Operating Environment	B.11.23.0706
OS-Core.MinimumRuntime.CORE-SHLIBS	Compatible development tools libraries	B.11.23
HPUXBaseAux	HP-UX Base OS Auxiliary	B.11.23.0706
HPUXBaseAux.openssl	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	A.00.09.071.003
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	On HP-UX, PAM is part of the core operating system components. There are no other dependencies.

HP-UX 11i v3 PA-RISC

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
HPUX11i-OE	HP-UX Foundation Operating Environment	B.11.31
OS-Core.MinimumRuntime.CORE2-SHLIBS	Specific IA emulator libraries	B.11.31
openssl/Openssl.openssl	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	A.00.09.08d.002
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	On HP-UX, PAM is part of the core operating system components. There are no other dependencies.

HP-UX 11i v3 IA64

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
HPUX11i-OE	HP-UX Foundation Operating Environment	B.11.31.0709
OS-Core.MinimumRuntime.CORE-SHLIBS	Specific IA development libraries	B.11.31
SysMgmtMin	Minimum Software Deployment Tools	B.11.31.0709
SysMgmtMin.openssl	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	A.00.09.08d.002
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	On HP-UX, PAM is part of the core operating system components. There are no other dependencies.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.1 (Tikanga)

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
glibc	C Standard Libraries	2.5-12
Openssl	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	0.9.8b-8.3.el5
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	0.99.6.2-3.14.el5

Solaris 10 SPARC

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
Required OS patch	PAM memory leak	117463-05
SUNWlibC	Sun Workshop Compilers Bundled libC (sparc)	5.10, REV=2004.12.22
SUNWlibms	Math & Microtasking Libraries (Usr) (sparc)	5.10, REV=2004.11.23
SUNWlibmsr	Math & Microtasking Libraries (Root) (sparc)	5.10, REV=2004.11.23
SUNWcslr	Core Solaris Libraries (Root) (sparc)	11.10.0, REV=2005.01.21.15.53
SUNWcsl	Core Solaris Libraries (Root) (sparc)	11.10.0, REV=2005.01.21.15.53
OpenSSL	SUNopenssl-librararies (Usr) Sun provides the OpenSSL libraries for Solaris 10 SPARC. They are bundled with the operating system.	11.10.0,REV=2005.01.21.15.53
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules SUNWcsr, Core Solaris, (Root) (sparc)	11.10.0, REV=2005.01.21.15.53

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 (i586)

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
glibc-2.4-31.30	C Standard shared library	2.4-31.30
OpenSSL	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	0.9.8a-18.15
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	0.99.6.3-28.8